


The Wicked and the Dead

by AstroGirl



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett, Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Crossover, Episode Related, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-16
Updated: 2018-05-16
Packaged: 2019-05-07 16:43:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14675217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AstroGirl/pseuds/AstroGirl
Summary: Zelena encounters Death.  Twice. In two different bars.





	The Wicked and the Dead

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the always-entertaining A Ficathon Goes Into a Bar, for the prompt "Death goes into a bar and meets Zelena." Part 2 is set during the episode "Chosen" in _Once Upon a Time_ 's season 7, and may not make a whole lot of sense if you haven't seen that.

**1\. Ankh-Morpork**

Death came early to the Mended Drum.

He didn't need to. Death, unlike every other entity in the multiverse, never needs to worry about being late. This is a pun, or play on words. It is also the simple truth. Or at least, most of the time it is. Death may be immune to Time, but he is susceptible to the infinitely more powerful force of narrative causality, which sometimes insists that time must be of the essence. For most ordinary purposes, however, it is true enough.

In this case, Death arrived early not for any particular reason, but merely because he occasionally enjoys taking his time and stopping to smell the... Well, all right, no one would mistake the Mended Drum for smelling like roses, but the basic idea holds. Although it might be more accurate to say he was there to people-watch. Death rather enjoys watching people recreationally, as professionally he seldom sees them at their best.

People, for the most part, do not enjoy watching Death. Indeed, most find it sufficiently uncomfortable to accept his appearance, presence, or, indeed, existence, that their minds, eyes, and mind's eyes prefer to slide away from him at every opportunity.

Which made the woman sitting alone at the corner table stand out. Not only was she not _not_ looking at him, she was in fact actively staring. Based upon this, Death could only conclude that she was a witch, as one of the gifts of witches is the ability to see the things that are directly in front of them. Of course, the big, black pointy hat was also something of a clue. The green skin was considerably less standard for witches, but Death wasn't going to judge.

She was looking at him with an expression of open hostility, but it wasn't the clear-eyed, purposeful hostility he was used to receiving from witches. (Not that he blamed them. Their job, often enough, is to keep people away from him for as long as they can. He does not disapprove of this, but he does understand that, in the eyes of the witches, it makes them natural enemies.) 

It might be, he reflected, that she was somewhat different from the witches he was familiar with. She was obviously not from around here. He based this conclusion not on the color of her skin – in Ankh-Morpork, things that odd were hardly odd enough to be odd – but on the fact that he knew (in his bones, one might say, if one wanted to be _really_ annoying) that her lifetimer existed nowhere on his shelves. This, of course, did not mean that she wasn't going to die, only that she wasn't going to die _here_ , on the Disc. The fact that she was as visible to him as he was to her was sufficient proof of that. Death might be only the Death of this particular world, but all Deaths are, in a sense, one Death, and no amount of inter-dimensional travel can remove a mortal from their collective sight.

On further consideration, the reason for the look she was giving him might have had more to do with the empty glass of scumble in front of her. Which was really rather impressive. Death had occasionally been required to pay professional calls on those who'd drunk that much of the stuff unprepared.

"You!" she said at last, pointing a finger in his direction. Or at least approximately in his direction. She seemed to be having some difficulty aiming it and speaking at the same time.

ME? Death pointed to himself with one of his own, much bonier, fingers, and widened his eye sockets a little. He was unused to being addressed in such a fashion. It was mildly interesting.

"Yes! I know what you are! I _see_ you."

There did not seem to be any useful reply to that, so Death said nothing.

"You think you can take me, you... you miserable skeleton?" She laughed. Death was fairly certain it qualified as a cackle. "I defy you!"

Death shrugged. Lots of people defied him. In his experience, it made very little difference, beyond the fact that people given to acts described as "death-defying," paradoxically, tended to meet him more quickly on the average.

"I," she continued, with haughty, although somewhat slurred, conviction, "am far too wicked to die."

Death tilted his head and looked at her again. In a voice far too full of truth to require conviction, he said, I AM AFRAID IT DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY.

For a moment, he saw something flash across her face, some look of vulnerability or fear. Then, swaying only slightly, she straightened up and looked him in the fathomless depths of his eyes. "Well, not for a long time, then. A very, _very_ long time. Not until I've got everything I deserve. And I _will_ get everything I deserve! You won't cheat me of that. _No one_ will cheat me of that!" She slammed her fist on the table for emphasis, sending the tiny, empty scumble glass tumbling to the floor.

WHAT MORTALS DESERVE, he said, IS NONE OF MY CONCERN.

She was rising from her chair, starting to say something else, but Death turned away from her. On the other side of the bar, the event he'd come for was beginning. A shout, a scuffle, the sound of a bottle being broken. Death readied his scythe and got to work.

When he was done, she'd disappeared. He wondered for a moment where she'd come from, where she'd gone, and what story it was he'd stepped briefly into the middle of.

But only for a moment. Her story would surely not require his help, not even at the ending. And he had affairs of his own to attend to.

 

**2\. Seattle**

Zelena – or, as she couldn't quite seem to stop thinking of herself, Kelly – sat alone in the bar she'd founded with her sister in a life that hadn't included witchcraft, or murder, or lonely and anxiety-inducing crises of identity.

She stared at the image of Chad on her phone, again, and again she didn't answer it. What could she possibly say? "Hello, darling, I have some marvelous news for you. I've recently remembered who I am, and guess what? You're engaged to the Wicked Witch of the West! Isn't that lovely?" No. No, it might just be better never to talk to him again at all.

So why did her heart lurch when the door to the bar swung open suddenly, full of irrational hope that it would somehow be him walking in, phone in his hand? And why was her very first reaction, when she realized it wasn't Chad but a seven-foot-tall skeleton in a black cloak, more disappointment than surprise?

In fact, she hardly had time for surprise, as her inappropriate sense of disappointment shaded almost immediately into fear. Automatically, she reached out and brushed her fingertips across the box of poisoned chocolates. Still unopened, of course. But that was no guarantee of safety. What if the killer had decided to take her out some other way? A bomb in the bar, a gunman ready to burst through the door, and her here, all alone, devoid of magic or weaponry or any kind of plan?

The skeleton stood just inside the door, looking around in a way that gave the impression of mild interest. Blue stars blazed in the dark void of his eyes. Zelena tried to stare them down.

"You!" she said. She meant it to sound accusatory, and was disappointed by the tremor in her voice. "I know you. You're the one from that... that bizarre flat realm with the turtle, and the ridiculously powerful drinks." 

What was it she had been there looking for? Some magical artifact she'd thought might be useful in the cause of her revenge. Something to do with sentient wood? It seemed so long ago now. Like another life, if you wanted to be boringly cliché about it.

Death took a step towards her. ME?, he said. And then, OH. WE HAVE DONE THIS BEFORE, HAVEN'T WE? ALTHOUGH YOU ARE MUCH LESS GREEN NOW.

"You are here for me this time, aren't you?" Her fingers slid and skipped across the top of the candy box. She didn't seem to be able to stop them. "You've finally caught up with me." Her voice was cracking embarrassingly. So much for dignity in her last moments. She took a deep breath, trying to draw herself together, to think of some more suitable last words.

NO, he said.

"N-- Wait, what? What do you mean, _no_?" Bizarrely, she felt almost offended. An avatar of Death walking into her bar, in a land that's supposed to be without magic? How could that not be about her? And if not, what else _could_ it be about? "You mean I'm not going to die?"

YOU ARE GOING TO DIE, the skeleton said, the fact of his words shaping themselves solemnly in her brain without bothering to use her ears.

"Yes, but, now? Am I going to die _now_?"

She didn't want to die now. She didn't want to die with all those messages from Chad unanswered on her phone. She didn't want to die with her daughter still confused about what secrets Mum was keeping from her. Or, for that matter, without finding someone else to take over Kelly's yoga classes.

The skeleton shrugged. I DON'T KNOW. IT IS NOT CURRENTLY MY CONCERN. I AM... ON HOLIDAY.

Zelena blinked. "Holiday? You're allowed to take holidays?" 

NO.

Death walked over to the bar and sat down. Was she supposed to serve him a drink? She found herself getting up and walking around to the other side of the bar. Apparently her bartender's instincts were still as present in her mind as everything else from her cursed life. "So, are people where you're from going to stop dying, then? I'd think that could get a little inconvenient."

Did he actually look embarrassed at that? And if so, _how_? NO. MY GRANDDAUGHTER HAS TAKEN OVER THE JOB. RELUCTANTLY.

"Your _granddaughter_?" This was beginning to be weirdly fascinating.

YES. And, then, in response to the quizzical look she was giving him, HER MOTHER WAS ADOPTED.

"Ah. Well. It's nice to have family."

Death looked down at his hands and said nothing.

"Do you want a drink? _Do_ you drink? I mean, can you?"

YES, he said.

"Yes you can, or yes you want one? Oh, never mind. Here." She pulled out a bottle of whiskey. Was Death a whiskey drinker? "No wait, perhaps something more thematically appropriate. I've always wanted to make one of these." If she remembered correctly, Roni should have one dusty bottle of absinthe just in the back of... Ah. There. "It's called Death in the Afternoon." She poured the absinthe into a champagne flute, added the champagne, and set the drink down in front of the skeleton.

He looked at it dubiously. DO YOU HAVE ANYTHING WITH A LITTLE UMBRELLA?

"Oh, just drink it. It won't kill you."

He did. She tried to see how it happened, but somehow her brain completely failed to register the process. Interesting.

"So, you're on holiday? And you just happened to walk into my bar? In Seattle?"

I THOUGHT A CHANGE OF SCENERY WOULD BE NICE.

"And is it?"

He shrugged. THERE ARE SOME VERY PRETTY CATS IN THE ALLEY BEHIND THE BAR.

All right, time to steer this conversation in a more useful direction. "So, if you're not here for me... Can you at least tell me if I'm going to die soon? That does happen to be a matter of some concern to me at the moment." 

NO. I AM ON HOLIDAY. MY GRADDAUGHTER--

"Is doing your job, yes." All right, she couldn't dismiss the tickle of curiosity in the back of her brain any more. "Did you really adopt her mother?"

YES. Death looked down into his empty glass.

"Was she a human? You adopted an actual human baby?"

IS THAT SURPRISING?

"Well, honestly, yes. I mean, let's be honest, family is hard enough for those of us with... with..."

GLANDS?

"Probably not the word I was going to come up with, but why not."

YOU ARE PROBABLY RIGHT. SUCH THINGS ARE PERHAPS NOT MEANT TO BE.

"Oh." Suddenly she felt bad. For a talking skeleton. For an _avatar of Death_. What an utterly bizarre life this was. "Well. Children are difficult. My own Margot... I mean Robin..." Zelena sighed, a sudden feeling of weariness stealing over her. "There have been times she didn't even want to talk to me. Didn't want me to be her mother." She blinked away a moist, tight feeling in her eyes, reached for the whiskey bottle again, and poured herself a glass. 

WE DO WHAT WE CAN FOR THEM, said Death. His voice still sounded like the clanging of coffin lids in her mind, but softer. BUT SOME OF US ARE NOT VERY SUITED TO IT.

Zelena grabbed another glass, poured more whiskey, and slid it in front of Death. "Screw that," she said. "At least you tried. My own mother abandoned me in an inter-dimensional tornado." She downed the rest of her own glass, and poured a little more. "I just don't want to leave my daughter alone. Not until I've had the chance to talk to her about... things. Until she's had the chance to know me again. Really, properly _know_ me. You know?"

The whiskey in front of Death had disappeared. Even though she'd been watching him the whole time, she still hadn't seen him drinking it. 

I AM UNKNOWABLE. He almost sounded like the alcohol was affecting him, the clanging coffin lids slurred and blurry around the edges.

"Well. Aren't we all." She slopped some more whiskey into his glass. "But at least you know who you are. You have a purpose. One that never changes." She sighed. "Some days I miss that."

SOMETIMES I WONDER WHAT IT WOULD BE LIKE TO BE ALLOWED TO CHANGE.

"Difficult." Zelena sighed again. "Entirely too bloody difficult. But you know what? It's worth it." She looked across the bar, to her phone, still sitting on the table next to the chocolates, then back at Death. He was staring at her. The darkness in his eye sockets was dizzyingly deep, but the light shining from them, for all its icy blueness, seemed strangely warm.

"Family helps," she said. 

YES. 

He sat quietly for a moment, then, in a strangely fluid motion for an entity made entirely of bones, stood up. I SHOULD GO.

"Back to your granddaughter?"

YES. 

"Good." She swept up the empty glasses, put the whiskey bottle back on the shelf. "You should be good to her. Be... knowable. It's much better than having a purpose, believe me."

He looked at her for a long moment, his face as unreadable and unchanging as any skull, then turned and walked away.

But at the doorway, he paused and turned back, and something in his demeanor shifted. Zelena couldn't have said what it was, only that, for a moment, he looked a great deal more human.

ERM, he said. DON'T EAT THE CHOCOLATES.

"I wasn't going to. But thanks."

He nodded, and between one heartbeat and another, he was gone.

Zelena sat back down at her table and picked up her phone. It was buzzing again.

Soon, perhaps, she would answer it.


End file.
